


Tiber, Father Tiber

by AJHall



Series: LoPiverse [5]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, LoPiverse - Fandom
Genre: M/M, Pre-Slash, lopiverse (canon-divergent universe)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-24
Updated: 2014-06-24
Packaged: 2018-02-06 01:21:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1839199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AJHall/pseuds/AJHall
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The human race’s ability to invent unfortunate combinations of alcoholic drinks far outstrips its abilities to devise ways of mitigating their effects. Nowhere has a prairie oyster, an Amber Moon, an Ancestral Hangover Potion or an alka-seltzer gone, but its path has been beaten down before it by wandering herds of cocktails, stampeding hordes of ones-for-the-road, and tyrannising multitudes of but-it’s–my-round-so-let-me-tempt-yous.</p><p>Draco Malfoy, during Recent Events, makes an unfortunate choice of drinking companions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tiber, Father Tiber

**Author's Note:**

> Set immediately before [ Time Shall Not Mend ](http://tsnm.shoesforindustry.net/). Written long before the last three books were published, and canon-divergent accordingly. Enormous thanks to Viki at [ AJ Hall fics ](http://ajhall-fics.livejournal.com) for looking after this one.

The human race’s ability to invent unfortunate combinations of alcoholic drinks far outstrips its abilities to devise ways of mitigating their effects. Nowhere has a prairie oyster, an Amber Moon, an Ancestral Hangover Potion or an alka-seltzer gone, but its path has been beaten down before it by wandering herds of cocktails, stampeding hordes of ones-for-the-road, and tyrannising multitudes of but-it’s–my-round-so-let-me-tempt-yous.

All, apparently, wearing stiletto heeled boots. Made out of red-hot iron.

Draco Malfoy rolled onto his side, and moaned piteously.

Nobody came.

After a decent interval protecting his tortured, excoriated eyeballs from the pitiless blaze of daylight, he allowed his left eye to open by the smallest possible fragment. Unfortunately, it managed to register one important fact on his brain during the split-second of opportunity he granted it.

“Oh, fuck a duck,” he exclaimed, sitting bolt upright.

His bedside alarm was currently set rigidly—as immovable as a barometer heralding “Set Fair” in Mexico City on June 21—to _So deeply buried in shit you might as well start burrowing for Sydney now, sunshine._

More to the point, the hands of the accompanying clock were equally unequivocal in their message.

He gulped, with a dry mouth that felt much like the inside of the cage belonging to a parrot suffering from a peculiarly unfortunate concatenation of intestinal disorders.

“Oh, shit,” he said aloud.

Admittedly, he had had some difficulty adjusting to the entire concept of _on a war footing_ , and _under military discipline_ still conjured up rather entrancing visions from the magazines left—felicitously—behind on the hasty departure from the Manor of his much-missed Quidditch coach, but certain elements had, it was true, managed to stick during the few weeks since he had joined the Allies.

One of them, unhappily, being that the whole idea of 'Dawn Raid' carried a certain inevitable, self-referential, time-critical element.

And another being that, however laxly one defined 'dawn', 10.45 ack emma was in no sense within the appropriate ball-park. No —make that continent.

Draco Malfoy rolled further onto his side and was sick all over his bedside rug.

\----

The air of the ward was heady with the scents of poppy and mandragora syrup. It was clear that analgesia potions were being brewed on an industrial scale somewhere on the premises.

The Healer on duty looked at Draco with an expression of profound dislike. "I'll give you two minutes. But I can't speak for whether he will. I wouldn't in his place."

Draco looked down at the figure in the bed with the trepidation of one who, after a bare day or two's practice on the nursery slopes of contrition, suddenly finds himself poised on the brink of a black run signposted 'Utterly Abject Self-Abasement'. And with no way to go but down.

The Healer favoured Neville with an exaggeratedly protective glance and placed herself unequivocally within earshot.

"Er, I'm sorry," Draco said. Neville shrugged slightly among the pillows, and the Healer turned towards Draco with a voice that dripped scorn.

"You're sorry? Call that an adequate apology, do you?"

Her comment had stung him, plainly. His face was flushed as he snapped, "No. Of course not. Would you like to assist me by giving me a hint what would be adequate? In the circumstances?"

She hesitated. An impartial observer (had there been one in the room) would have been forced to concede he had made a telling point. Given the apology had to cover _Getting so blink drunk I left you to carry out a crucial mission solo, so it ended up a complete fiasco which almost cost you your life_ , achieving adequacy was going to be an almost superhuman task.

She took a deep breath. "Well, if I hadn't just washed the floor, I'd be minded to suggest something a bit more—Japanese."

Draco regarded her with faint, irritating bafflement for a moment, and then switched his attention back to Neville.

"I got you this," he proffered, taking something out of the dragon-hide duffel bag he'd been carrying over his shoulder and setting it down on the bedside table with a faint clunk. Neville's too-bright eyes widened in bemusement.

"You brought wine?"

Draco's flush deepened. He had the air of someone picking his words very carefully.

"Well. I—um—I thought bringing flowers would be even less tactful. In the circumstances."

Neville's tone had an uncharacteristically acid edge. "Well, possibly. Unless by some freakish coincidence you happened to have some Oviparous Orchids in your possession?"

Draco's colour deepened. "No."

"No, well, then. Your instinct was right."

Draco spread his hands. "Look, I really wanted to say—"

Neville turned over in the bed, away from him. "Can we talk about it later? I'm feeling like shit at the moment."

Draco paused. "Oh, right, but I just—"

The Healer, a righteous gleam in her eye, advanced upon the bedside.

"Didn't you hear him? He isn't up to having to talk to you at the moment. Understandably. Now, are you going to leave of your own accord or am I going to have to Banish you? Because frankly, offhand I can't think of much that would give me greater pleasure."

"I—"

"I'm waiting."

Draco paused, swallowed, appeared to think of and then think better of saying something, looked down at the hump of blanket-covered back turned uncommunicatively in his direction, and fled.

\----

Draco’s room was total chaos. Neville edged around the door which Draco had opened only a fraction at his knock, presumably because the mess on the floor was obstructing it, and tried not to show his surprise. He had assumed Draco to be the obsessively neat and organized type. Maybe it was merely that he had always hired those sort of minions.

From the state of his room, Draco’s minions were apparently on strike. Or perhaps he had been packing to leave and simply mislaid the suitcase somewhere under a pile of belongings.

“Well?” Draco demanded, waving Neville towards the only visible chair and flopping down on the bed, his eyes fixed on the ceiling. “And what did Command have to say?”

Neville shrugged. “We’re still working together. At least for the foreseeable. They haven’t anyone else to pair me with, and also, given what happened, they aren’t going to let me go back to working alone, either. And I quote: 'Almost incredible as it may be to contemplate, it seems your ineptitude solo can indeed surpass your idiocy when partnered.'"

Draco rolled over into a sitting position, the better to judge if Neville was being serious.

“Oh, ouch! When I was on his carpet I got the impression that he was using my hide as a grindstone to sharpen his sarcasm on, but that’s not fair.”

Neville shrugged. “Well. Possibly. He took a pretty dim view of my not reporting that you hadn’t showed up for duty, you know.”

Draco looked down at the carpet, apparently fascinated by the sheer hideousness of its design.

“Yes—look—I never got a chance to say anything about that bit when you were in the infirmary. Not with that bloody Healer looking at me as though she wanted to Transfigure me into a cockroach and step on me. But—anyway—thanks for trying to cover up for me. I hadn’t actually expected—"

His voice tailed off. Neville looked across at him with curiosity. As though trying to avoid confronting his gaze, Draco got up from the bed and wandered over towards the window, addressing his next comments resolutely at the glass.

“It never occurred to me I’d land you in shit with Command on top of nearly getting you killed—oh fuck. How badly are they taking it?”

Neville shrugged. “Well, for what it’s worth his parting shot was that he thought the biggest military service I could do the Allies was defect to You-Know-Who.”

Draco spun round. “The bastard!” He paused, and for the first time the faint ghost of a wintry smile crossed his face. “Anyway, take it from me that would be a supremely bad idea. If we’d been on the Death Eaters side and either of us had pulled a stunt like that one, we’d both have been for the chop. No arguing.”

Neville’s voice sounded faintly wistful. “Does You-Know-Who do sarcasm?”

Draco shot him a quick look from narrowed eyes, and then shook his head. “Not noticeably, no. From my observation I’d say the Dark Lord’s motto was pretty definitely 'One Unspeakable’s Worth A Thousand Words.'”

The wistful note deepened. “Perhaps I’ll take it under advisement.”

Encouraged by the slight thawing he detected in the atmosphere, Draco moved another pile of his belongings onto the floor and excavated a tin of biscuits, which he hospitably offered to Neville.

“I really am sorry about nearly getting you killed, you know. I do mean that.”

Neville’s habitual worried frown eased slightly. “I know. And it did occur to me—when I was trying to get to sleep last night—that I was being a bit of a hypocrite about it. After all—whatever he might have done—Gerry Abbott never got an apology from me. Actually—"

He looked across at Draco with a faint, shy grin. “If you ever fancied making a pass at Hannah, this week could be a good time. She’s never forgiven me for blowing up her cousin, you know. Try her with 'I’ve just nearly killed Neville Longbottom' and you could be well in there.”

“Making a pass at Hannah? How likely do you think that is?” Draco’s voice was incredulous. “Look, I thought I was the only person on this base who didn’t know the full gory saga of what I got up to when I was pissed the other night. At least, not until they were explained to me in hideous detail in the Commander Office. Including, of course, my effusively amorous advances to our beloved Base co-ordinating wizard.”

Neville looked at him sympathetically. “Well yes, I had heard about that. Naturally. But that hardly counts, does it?”

“Hardly counts? In what sense, hardly counts?”

Neville spread his hands; his voice was the essence of calm reason.

“Well, put it this way. Anyone who knows anything at all about you would realise that for you to be drunk enough to make a pass at him, you’d have to be too drunk to actually see him.”

There was a speaking silence, broken by a giggle that teetered on the edge of hysteria.

“I can assure you, he didn’t take it that way. They hauled him in so they could force me to make a formal apology to him—and given I’d only just been told what I’d done, and still thought that it was a malignant hoax they were playing on me—"

Neville interrupted, a note of worry in his voice. “So? What did you say?”

Draco hesitated for an instant. "Well, you're quite right, of course."

He drummed his fingers nervously on the back of the chair. "Since at that point I'd rather assumed my military career was about to come to a quick inglorious end, I thought there was no point in not saying what I thought. Which was: I am indeed truly sorry—not to mention frankly appalled—that, however drunk I may have been, it could have crossed my mind to make a pass at a man I now appreciate has an arse the size of Australia and a face like a baboon's armpit."

Neville emitted a quick, horrified giggle. "And?"

“Well, that witch who was taking the minutes—Liz somebody—must have spotted that I was on the point of committing suicide—"

“She’s a trained Legimens. She would.”

“And for some bizarre reason she decided to take pity on me and surreptitiously hit me with a coughing hex before I got the second half of the sentence out. So fortunately he decided to interpret the first bit as a sufficiently abject grovel, and bolted. Frankly, I think they must have used Imperius to get him in the same room as me in the first place. I’ve never seen a man look so twitchy. And I so owe Liz a drink. I can’t imagine what she was thinking of. I definitely thought I hadn’t qualified for any favours from anybody.”

“Ah. You’ve got the Base co-ordinating wizard to thank for that one. Definitely a let-the-fingers-do-the-walking sort of guy. All the girls on the base were cheering when they heard he’d got a taste of his own medicine."

Draco winced, and in order to cover up his confusion started ferreting around on the table in the bedroom, apparently with the aim of finding the wherewithal to make tea. Neville looked in some surprise as he threw a pile of bloodstained clothing onto the floor.

"What the hell’s that lot?” He looked doubtfully at Draco. “You didn’t go trying to put that Healer’s instructions into practice or something stupid like that, did you?”

“No. I’ve no idea what I collided with, but I must have banged my nose royally on something while I was pissed. I woke up covered in blood and snot. Given what else I was apparently getting up to, I’d have betted I’d walked into someone’s fist, but then no-one’s been panting to claim the credit—"

“Do you often have nosebleeds?” The urgency of the question—the sense of disproportionate importance which, judging by his expression, Neville was attaching to the answer, flummoxed Draco. He shrugged.

“Never had one before in my life, so far as I know. Well, absent a Bludger in the face, that is.”

Neville’s expression grew tense. The next question was rapped out with a ferocity that made Draco sit up straight in sheer surprise.

“Draco—how many drinks did you actually have?”

He shrugged. “How the fuck am I supposed to know? I don’t remember anything beyond the first couple or so—oh, and why didn’t you show? What kept you? You might have had enough gumption to drag me out the bar when I started getting completely wazz-arsed, unlike those other prats.”

“Show? Me? “ Neville’s expression was incredulous. “You were expecting me to join you?”

Draco nodded.

“Yes, of course. Why else would I have gone out boozing with Tiberius Ogden and his mates? I barely know the bloke, and half the others I’d never met before and wouldn’t recognise again. He said you were finishing up in the greenhouses and would be along soon, but why waste good drinking time?” He frowned. “It made sense at the time.”

“Look, I’ve never had a drink with Tiberius Ogden in my life. And he most certainly didn’t invite me to have one that night, either. And I wouldn’t have accepted if he had.”

“What? But he said—I thought—I mean, fuck, he comes from up your way, doesn’t he? And you were both in Gryffindor together—"

“Five years apart,” Neville snapped. “And anyway, last I heard, You-Know-Who was a Slytherin, but I’m sure you wouldn’t regard that as an adequate reason for slipping out for a bevvy with him—"

Draco had gone even paler than normal. A vein in his forehead throbbed.

“Let’s get this straight. You don’t like Tiberius Ogden—"

Neville looked faintly embarrassed. “Well, it’s more complicated than that. Deep dark family feud stuff. The short version is that gran reckons his dad tried to cheat her on some business deal yonks ago. And Things got Said. And everything went downhill from there, basically. If I got chummy with him, she’d probably disinherit me, and I doubt he’d be any too popular with his dad, either.”

“So he was lying?” Draco thought for a moment. “Actually, being the cynical sort I am, it did faintly cross my mind he might have had an ulterior motive for inviting me to join them. But I assumed if he had, it was just the attraction of the unfortunately currently mythical Malfoy millions. But it can’t really be that. I hadn’t got all that much dosh on me, and actually I had most of it left the next morning. It must have cost them an utter fortune getting me that plastered. I mean, you may not believe this, but I actually can hold my liquor pretty well—"

Neville reached decisively for his jacket. “Oh, I believe you, all right.”

Draco raised an eyebrow. “Where are you going?”

Neville was at the door. “Well, I don’t get returned to the active duty roster till tomorrow. So in the interim, I’m going to look up a couple of old friends.”

“Wha—?”

Draco found himself talking to a closed door. It opened again, a fraction, and Neville poked his head round.

“It’s a Gryffindor thing, ok? Be seeing you.”

The door closed, then opened again.

"And, for your information, Tiberius Ogden wouldn't need to blag any drinks off you. He's one of the Firewhiskey Ogdens. Rolling in it. And anyway, the bar were probably selling to him at trade."

The door closed, this time finally.

\----

 _Weasleys Wizard Wheezes_ had a spick-and-span air of newly painted prosperity. As Neville entered from Diagon Alley the doorbell first rang a brief and impressive chime to announce his arrival that segued almost seamlessly into, "Mind the step! Mind the step! For god’s sake mind the fucking—Oh, no, and when I told specifically warned you, too—!"

George Weasley, summoned by the commotion from the office at the back, was somewhat flummoxed to find a pair of struggling feet (in Muggle trainers), jeans-clad legs, and flapping wizard robes, protruding from a cardboard bin whose garish sign proclaimed “Bumper Weenie Wheezer Starter Packs! Sure-fire Fun for the Under-Fives!” When, however, a succession of firm yanks released his customer’s head and upper body from confinement in the bin, revealing him to be Neville Longbottom, further explanation appeared superfluous.

Unfortunately, the struggle to free Neville from his imprisonment had not been without casualties. A number of the boxes appeared to have burst open; George had taken the full brunt of the full contents of a carton of Scratcherific Skin Scourger over his head and chest (and had a nasty suspicion that some of the tiny time-delay capsules which had made that product such a technical advance on other itching powders had made their way down inside his robes to other, and less mentionable, latitudes, before he realised the disaster).

A whole flock of Burping Bombs and Flying Farters had migrated to the ceiling, cowering out of reach below the cornices. Two, disregarding both the age-appropriate labeling on the packaging from which they had made their bid for freedom and the fact that in the question “Animal, Vegetable, or Mineral?” they would indubitably be forced to plump for the third option, started to engage in the sort of behaviour which has always made the chimpanzee house at the Zoo the most truly educational element of any given school trip.

Neville, having been forcibly pulled to his feet, assumed an expression of utmost embarrassment, despite having obviously taken the full olfactory brunt of a Nasal Nightmare.

“I ab do sorry,” he announced, holding a pocket handkerchief before his streaming eyes. “Look—I’ll helb! Reparo!”

George’s despairing cry of, “No, honestly! I’ll do it” was lost in the sound of the charm going wrong.

Fourteen demi-johns on a high shelf cracked at once, and multicoloured streams of liquid spurted violently out. George, diving out of the reach of some only to be caught by others, suddenly found his face break out in purple boils, his nasal hair assume the length of Rip Van Winkle’s beard, and one ear engorge instantly to Dumboesque proportions. Nothwithstanding the possibilities this may have afforded, since it is a truth universally acknowledged that one-eared elephants fly in circles, it was perhaps prudent that George chose to remain resolutely earth-bound.

“Oh, no!” Neville exclaimed. “Look—I dow how to reverse this—allow be—"

George ruthlessly swatted Neville to the ground with one blow of his Engorged ear and dragged him forcibly into the back office.

“I’ll fix it. You just stay there and sneeze. And don’t touch your wand. Or I’ll kill you.”

There followed a hectic twenty minutes or so. George, flopping into the chair on the other side of the desk and looking across at a contrite and quiet Neville, all ill-effects reversed or, at least, contained, thought he had undoubtedly earned a cup of tea. He snapped an order, apparently into thin air, and a well-appointed tea-tray, with some extremely upmarket biscuits, arrived equally without visible means of support.

Neville, on cue, gave an appreciative whistle.

“Good house-elves.”

George nodded. “Not bad, eh? They wouldn’t look at our business eighteen months ago, now they’re falling over themselves for a chance to work here. Anyway—other than an urge for random destruction, what brings you to see us?”

Neville looked distraught. “I’m so sorry—"

George spread his hands magnanimously. “No problem, mate. Mostly sorted now. And the ear effect only lasts twelve hours, it’s a safety feature. Anyway, what’s with life on the front line? My little bro’ told us the brass had actually gone and paired you with that dickhead Malfoy—?”

Neville nodded. George shrugged sympathetically. “What a total bastard. I’m surprised you haven’t been able to pull strings to get rid of him—"

“Funny you should mention it. I put in a request only this morning—"

George’s gaze was focused on a corner of the ceiling, where the antics of Daedalus’s Dynamic Dyebombs seemed to have made a mark which his earlier clean-up efforts seemed to have missed.

“Weren’t having any?” he enquired. Neville nodded.

“No-one else prepared to partner me.”

George shrugged.

“What a bummer. Look, you should have avoided the military altogether, mate. Gone into industry. Like us.”

“Was that an offer?” Neville’s face was open, enquiring. George flushed.

“Well, ah—don’t take this the wrong way—but with the war and everything—we’re not exactly hiring. Humans. Cash flow. Fledgling business. Overhead control. You know the score.”

Neville nodded. “Oh—um—yes. Of course. Anyway, that wasn’t what I came here for.”

George sat up straighter.

“No, of course. Do have some tea.”

At the invitation, Neville put down his tea cup and reached across the tray to snag a biscuit, paused, annexed the sugar bowl, added two lumps to his cup, and then replaced the sugar bowl on the very edge of the table. George followed his every move with the watchfulness of a large raptor recently diagnosed as suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder. It was only when it had become apparent that the carpet was going to escape unscathed this time that George felt at liberty to speak again.

“So? Do we get to assume that this has got something to do with your being paired with Dreary Malfoy? And not being able to get out of it?”

Neville flushed. “Indirectly—I suppose—"

George relaxed back into his chair, a broad grin on his features. “I get it. Count us on your side. What assistance can Weasleys Wizard Wheezes offer you?” He took a mouthful of tea.

Neville looked hesitant. “Well—he does have a birthday coming up—and I’d been wondering what would be suitable to celebrate it."

George spluttered tea all over the front of his robes. “Oh, I see. Custom special order, yes? Oh, my pleasure. And do we ever have the catalogue for you. Private introductions flipping well only, know what I mean? I’m sure you’ll find the appropriate—gift—in this one. Stratospheric levels of embarrassment guaranteed or your money back.”

A large parchment booklet—materializing out of thin air—hit Neville unexpectedly in the solar plexus. He perused it making “Ah—er—well—oops—really? gosh—no way—" noises for some minutes.

Eventually he raised his burning features above it.

“Ah—well—I’d never thought—good grief! I can see I’ll have to think about this.”

George shrugged hospitably.

“Of course. Keep the catalogue.”

“Really? Ah—um—thanks.” There was a slightly awkward pause. Neville broke it, saying, “Actually, what I’d really had in mind was one of your older ones. You know: the alcohol enhancement potion?”

George’s eyes narrowed. “Really?”

Neville nodded. “He told me only this morning he’d got a really good head for drink—"

George’s smile widened. “Oh, bugger! What a shame, mate. One of the most profitable lines we ever did.”

Neville’s forehead dropped naturally into the deeply creased puzzlement of a distressed bloodhound. “So? Can’t you supply me?”

George shook his head. “Not a hope. You see—" He dropped his voice impressively. “That was the development when we first realised the sheer commercial power of the negative inventive step.”

“The what?” Neville’s tone had all the bafflement any entrepreneur could reasonably require.

George waved his hand nonchalantly. “Well yes.” He paused. “Complete eye-opener. We'd never realised the commercial potential of the negative inventive step before that one.”

“Come again? I mean, sorry, could you please explain?”

“People will pay you not to invent things, if you're really clever.”

Neville's face was a mask of arrested politeness. “You mean, like The Man In The White Suit?” 

George goggled at him. “Which man?”

Neville shrugged. “Some Muggle I heard about once—it sort of sounded familiar—but I can't really remember much about it. Anyway, tell me properly what you did. Pay you not to do something? Why?”

George spread his hands and smiled a slow, confident, now-lady-tell-me-which-cup-the-pea-is-under grin.

“S'obvious isn't it? Alcohol enhancement potion? Like the brewers and distillers were actually going to like that one. Get totally wazz-arsed on two butterbeers instead of 14 single malts? No way.”

Neville nodded, transfixed. “I suppose so.”

George guffawed. “No suppose about it. Old man Ogden paid us £20,000 Galleons for the privilege of locking the formula up in his safe and our agreement to—let's say, divert our research energies elsewhere.”

He leaned across the space between them and tapped the side of his nose conspiratorially. “Of course, he doesn't know the best bit.”

Neville's eyes widened. “Which is?”

“Well—" George's voice dropped to a whisper, as though Artemus Ogden might have put an Extendable Ear into the office. “We'd already decided to drop the line. Couldn't get the bugs ironed out. You remember the nosebleed side effect?”

“I do indeed.” Neville's mouth twisted up wryly. George looked at him sidelong.

“Um—ah, yes. Sorry about that, mate. But we weren't to know your gran was going to show up before we'd managed to stop it and get you and your robes cleaned up, now, were we? No hard feelings, eh?”

Neville made a non-committal gesture with his head. George looked faintly uneasy and reverted to his main narrative thread.

“Anyway, we tried everything to fix it. But the real problem is, you need both the Ashwinder and the shrivelfig, and the side-effect's with combining the two. And our lawyer said—well, he said he'd had enough trouble getting us out of that mess with the Skiving Snackbox and the Muggleborn kid who turned out to be a haemophiliac, and that he wouldn't continue to represent us if we kept on with the potion. So it was pure bunce when Ogden came up with his offer. Not that we mentioned anything, naturally. I mean, it isn't as if he's going to use the formula, is it, and what he doesn't know, can't hurt him. Another cup of tea, mate?”

Neville shook his head. "I have to be going. I—ah—promised I'd look in on Gran. Ah—thanks for the catalogue, anyway. I'll owl you when I've made my mind up—"

George's eyes glittered. "You do that. If you want to make Draco Malfoy's birthday the most memorable event of his young life, rest assured we're both right behind you, mate. We’ll do anything you say. Trust us."

Neville nodded, vaguely. With momentary irritation George wondered whether, even assuming the lights were on, there was anyone home at all. It was more to avert the risk of having to deal with the aftermath of a splinching in his office than any consideration of politeness that led him to suggest, "Help yourself to the Floo powder, mate."

Neville nodded, smiled thanks, and stepped into the fireplace.

"Roughlee-in-Pendle," he said, and then, with a different note in his voice, "Oh, bugger!"

George was already diving for cover when the blow-back from the fire-place rolled over the office. When, singed and shaking, he next dared raise his head it was upon a scene of devatation.

He swore fluently for some minutes. And then—for he had a naturally optimistic disposition and a finished ability to appreciate the comic side—he allowed his normal good humour to assert itself. As he got down to performing the necessary housekeeping and repairing charms, he was whistling. A wry grin touched his lips.

"Well," he said aloud at the end of an hour's hard work, "I reckon that proves that nothing beats the power of well-meaning incompetence. If only we could get Longbottom lined up and pointing in the right direction I reckon You-Know-Who wouldn't know what hit him."

He paused again. “Always assuming that's what would be best for business.” 

\----

Draco collared a plate, snaffled a couple of sausages and a rasher or so of bacon from the warm dishes on the serving hatches, and hesitated. Neville was sitting in a corner of the dining room engaged in the intricate task of deboning a kipper. He slid into the seat next to him and unblushingly annexed the thin, shrunken, wartime edition of the Daily Prophet that Neville had left unguarded while he performed surgery on his breakfast.

Neville did not look up. "Page four," he muttered and slid the blunt edge of his knife under the mid-section of the backbone, uttering a grunt of triumph when a slight wriggle of his wrist lifted the lower half of the skeleton cleanly from the surrounding flesh.

Draco ignored the piscine dismemberment, flicking instead to the indicated page. He gave a low whistle. "Have you read this?"

With another careful lift-and-wriggle motion Neville slid the kipper sideways off its skeleton. "Uh-huh."

He paused, and then looked up at Draco. "I mean, if I hadn't, how else would I know to tell you to read it?"

Draco considered for a moment, and then, without responding to the comment, started to read aloud.

"A spokesman for whisky king Artemus Ogden (79) expressed his confidence that the industrialist (arrested yesterday in a dramatic midnight swoop by Ministry officials on his Yorkshire mansion) would shortly be released.

"This is a grotesque miscarriage of justice, and we are confident that a full investigation will show Mr Ogden's entire innocence of these appalling charges. Mr Ogden lies tonight in a Ministry cell—the innocent victim of a conspiracy to discredit him, orchestrated by those petty minds who are jealous of true entrepreneurial spirit. But those behind the lies should know that Mr Ogden has sworn to fight back and defeat them with the wand of truth and the trusty shield of wizarding fair play."

Despite this bold front, sources within the Ministry have confirmed initial reports that among the evidence seized were parchments sealed with You-Know-Who's personal seal, apparently promising valuable monopoly concessions on liquor in exchange for Ogden's support.

Trading in shares in the Ogden's Group companies has been suspended both on Financial Alley and overseas exchanges following a sharp fall in share price apparently caused by advance rumours of the raid, and a flurry of speculative purchasing—"

Draco looked up. "So that's why Tiberius isn't at breakfast."

"S'right."

Draco looked up to find Liz, bearing a tray whose dry toast, orange juice and natural yoghurt was an eloquent reproach to their own selections.

"Anyone sitting here?" she asked. By way of answer, Neville pulled out the chair next to him and gestured hospitably at it. Draco raised an eyebrow.

"And? About Tiberius?"

Liz shrugged. "Well, he's probably in the next cell to his pa by now. After all he’s confessed to. They hauled him in on spec, and he started singing even before the Veritaserum could have kicked in—I wore out three quills getting it all down—"

"Liz," Draco interrupted, "Why do you put up with being stuck with this secretarial dross? Why don't you go to Command and ask them to give you a proper job? After all, if they took me for active service, they can’t be that fussy."

Neville became suddenly very intent on his kipper. Liz sighed.

"That would still be the mislaid-in-action right leg problem I mentioned last time you raised the subject. In that bar. It hasn't grown back over the last few days, you know. No active missions for me: likewise no dancing. As I told you at the time."

Draco's expression was less that of someone who could not believe his ears but rather one who could believe them only too well.

"I asked you to dance?"

Liz's mouth was solemn, though her eyes sparkled. "Persistently. Wouldn't take no for answer. At least, not until I lost my rag a bit and took my artificial leg off. That seemed to convince you.”

Draco choked abruptly. Liz patted him solicitously on the back.

“You did what? In a bar? And how much had you had to drink, then?”

Liz crunched a bit of toast, thoughtfully. “One orange juice. One G&T. About half a second G&T.” She paused. “I think that second one was actually yours, you know. Sorry. Our glasses got swapped round at one point. Or so I think. My memories—aren’t actually all that clear of what went on after that.”

Draco started to say something, but she raised an arresting hand, speaking rather rapidly.

“There’s no call for either of you to let on that you know this, but I did float the possibility that they might consider checking for sabotage past Command at the time. But with you not being the most popular person on the base in the first place, and the Base coordinating wizard baying for blood—”

She shrugged. “Anyway, the current official line is that even if you were set up, you should have had the brains not to fall for it. So don’t hold your breath waiting for any apologies. But—”

She slid her hand into a pocket of her robes and flipped two sealed parchment envelopes out onto the table.

“I have been told to cut you orders for a new mission. And that’s it. Not exactly what I’d choose, but at least the scenery’s good. And it gets you out of here.”

“Thank god!” Draco breathed. “I was beginning to think I’d be stuck here scrubbing floors, doing dirty jobs for the infirmary, and chopping potions ingredients till the war ended.”

Liz shrugged again. “You might well have been if Artemus Ogden hadn’t managed to come such an opportune cropper and take Tiberius down with him.”

Draco looked sharply up at her. “Yes—how did they get on to him?”

A carapace of officialdom dropped suddenly over her. “That, young man, is one of the most official of official secrets. Even for asking me to tell, I’m supposed to kill you.” She relented with a sudden smile. “And I don’t know, anyway. Nor does anyone else. Anonymous tip-off from someone using the code-name Hobnailed Liver. Someone with a bloody good source of information, that’s for sure. Even came up with a decent stab at Ogden’s motive and where the good stuff was likely to be hidden. Almost as though they’d cased the joint personally before the Ministry went in.”

Draco exhaled. “God, what a good job it was for me he did. I’d like to shake his hand.”

Liz sniffed. “Do you really? And blow his cover? Anonymity sounds bloody sensible to me. Or are you forgetting what You-Know-Who presumably feels about having his nice bunch of collaborators rounded up and thrown into jail?”

Draco winced visibly, and Liz continued passionately on. “To say nothing of any of the Ogdens who aren’t currently behind bars. And Artemus himself when he manages to buy his way out, too. If Hobnailed Liver has any sense at all, that’s one secret he’ll take to his grave.”

“Or, of course, hers.” Neville, who had been finishing up his kipper in silence, flushed slightly as they both turned to look at him. “Just a thought,” he mumbled.

Draco turned back to Liz. “Anyway, it was a bloody huge slice of luck for me, whoever did it.”

“In my experience in this game, people seem to make their own luck.”

Draco snorted. “Can’t say I’d noticed I was doing much of that—"

She favoured them both with a wide, impartial smile. “Maybe you’re learning how.”

She picked up her tray and got up from the table. She nodded towards the envelopes. “You’d better be. That job’s going to need all of it.”

As she limped away towards the hatchway Draco seized the butter knife and slid it under the seal of the letter. He read the contents in a baffled way, twice.

“Neville?” he enquired. “What in bloody hell is a saxifrage?”


End file.
